NEW ORLEANS (Tuesday, February 12, 2013) – Magic City Thoroughbred Partners’ Golden Ticket,one-half of the duo who dead-heated for the win in Saratoga’s Grade I Travers last summer, will be coming to New Orleans to make his next start in Fair Grounds’ Grade III Mineshaft Handicap Feb. 23 as part of the upcoming multi-graded stakes program billed as Louisiana Derby Preview Day Presented by Lamarque Ford.

“Even with the dead-heat, it was thrilling to win a race as big as that one,” said trainer Ken McPeek Tuesday morning when asked to recall Golden Ticket’s Travers tally. “The horse ran great, and (jockey) David Cohen gave him a fantastic ride that day.

“Also, it meant a lot to make some new Saratoga history at the most historic race course in this country,” McPeek said of the first declared dead-heat for the win in 143 runnings of the Travers, although in 1874, long before the invention of the photo finish camera, there was an adjudged dead-heat after which the winner was decided following a runoff.

Interestingly, Golden Ticket’s win in the Travers was only the second of his career. After breaking his maiden in March, Golden Ticket had finished second in the Grade II Tampa Bay Derby March 10. However, in his lone trip to the post in 2013, Golden Ticket won an allowance and $62,500 optional claiming event at Gulfstream Jan. 26 by 5 1/2-lengths

“He ran super in that last race,” said McPeek. “He’s acted as a solid horse ever since I got him, but I’ve always thought he was a horse that is going to get better as he got older.

“Magic City Thoroughbred Partners is a partnership between a couple of guys from Billings, Montana, named Ken Schenker and Carter Stewart,” McPeek said. “Golden Ticket is the first horse they ever owned, but now they also have Frac Daddy.

“(Golden Ticket) will arrive at Fair Grounds on Feb. 21,” McPeek said. “James Graham will ride him in the Mineshaft.”

TODD PLETCHER TRAINEE PALACE MALICE RISEN STAR-BOUND – Five-time Eclipse Award-winning trainer Todd Pletcher, who won Fair Grounds’ Grade II Risen Star Stakes last season with Let’s Go Stable’s El Padrino, will try to make it two straight by sending Dogwood Stable’s Palace Malice to New Orleans for this year’s $400,000 Risen Star as the centerpiece event of four graded stakes that will make up Louisiana Derby Preview Day Presented by Lamarque Ford Feb. 23 at Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots.

The Risen Star Stakes is the designed local tune-up for the upcoming 100th running of the $1 million Louisiana Derby March 30.

Palace Malice is a sophomore son of two-time Horse of the Year Curlin,and the colt broke his maiden at Saratoga last summer but bucked his shins after that score and made his first start of 2013 in an allowance and $75,000 optional claiming race at Gulfstream Jan. 19, where he finished second.

“We can get (two-time defending jockey champion) Rosie Napravnik (to ride our horse in the Risen Star) in New Orleans,” stated Dogwood president (and New Orleans-born) Cot Campbell in a Dogwood press release. “Our horse is an easy shipper and he’s been training sharply for Todd Pletcher since his good 2013 debut.”

“It feels tremendous,” Stevens said after the Wishing Well, “because of guys like Tom Proctor here and everyone who has supported me through the years and giving me a shot once again…but it is good horses that put you in the winner’s circle.”